Do you sometimes wonder what in the world your spouse is talking about, like she is speaking another language, or she is from another planet.(maybe even mars?)
I think this is sometimes the scenario that God was in when He was talking to His people and even to His appointed leaders. A case in point, is King Saul and his kingdom. You see he actually thought it was his own kingdom, when we really look deeper into the story, it was not anything to do with Saul or a physical kingdom that was talked about.
The first mistake that Saul makes is that he thought that this kingdom was all his doing, after all He had just led the Israelites to the defeat of the amalakites. It was his army,his knowledge, his leadership that brought victory to this battle. His promoting himself even with a tribute to himself with a monument in the victory, cemented his accomplishment.
Our taking credit of God’s work is never a good thing. We fail to see that we could of actually done something that glorified God. It is always in our interest that we do something.
The second mistake or revelation that we don’t see is that,God was not talking about a fleshly kingdom,human kingdom, or a worldly kingdom. Samuel was the inspirational leader that had the insight of what God was doing, but Saul was not aware of it’s meaning.
Saul’s failure to rid of everything in the battle of the amalakites was not because it was the spoils of war. But it was it was the spiritual revelation that,we as christians are to only rely on Him, we are to free ourselves from everything of this world. Everything that is of this world is of the human nature. We are to destroy everything that is not of Christ, because it could or will have a influence on us somewhere down the road. This was the command from God almost every-time in the battles of the Israelites.
Now the key to this whole story is what is actually of the human nature that is in my life? How do we know? How do we find out? It is when we are in the Christ like nature, that we can without hesitation know that something isn’t of God. This nature of Christ is what He is looking for in His Church now.
On just another side note to this story is the response that Saul gives samuel and God, on why he kept the sheep and oxen. Saul, like us use excuses on why it would be benefical to us to do or keep things in our life to lift Christ up. (Saul response for this was that he was going to use these animals for the sacrifice to Him!)Keeping these animals was a sign of samuel’s living in the humanistic Kingdom!
Christ wants us to obey him in his ways, for His ways are not ours.
The Eternal Purpose 